The Naiad Voyages

Mark Austen

2016.12.02 - Bit of a Set Back

Friday, 2 December, 2016

The task for the day was the planing of the rubbing strake prior to its removal and gluing back on. The trouble was that part of the strake snapped as I ran the plane over it. This meant that I had to repair the split before I can continue the work.

The split has not gone right through the wood so the repair is not going to be too difficult.

The problem occurred in a curved section of the hull but not the tightest curve. I expect that there was a weak point in the wood just here.

The first thing to do is to slather the break with thickened epoxy, using it down into the gap as far as possible.

The rubbing strake was then unscrewed from the bows to just behind the break. The wood sprang back into position forcing a lot of the epoxy out of the break but also further into the break where I could not reach.

Had the strake broke completely then I would probably have needed to remove the entire thing so that I could clamp the pieces back together again on the workbench. As you can see, that has not been necessary.

The cramps are added to make a good join. Protect with plastic of course.

The temperature is not too low right now but it will still be several days before I can think about screwing this back on and I will need to screw it back to check that the repair holds. However, I think I will remove it completely and take it up to the house where is is warm so that the epoxy cures faster. This will mean that remixing it before glueing it on should not be necessary. The next job is to glue it onto the hull so it needs to be completely removed for that process.